2021 Grand Swiss, Round 5

 The all-French top board clash between Firouzja and Vachier-Lagrave ended in a draw, which meant that the players on 3 out of 4 had a chance to join Firouzja in the lead, and two of them did. Alexei Shirov's win against Saric and Evgeniy Najer's win against Hovhannisyan mean that there is now a 3-way tie heading into round 6, with Shirov-Firouzja an eagerly awaited match-up.

Behind them, there are 14 players on 3½, including top seed Fabiano Caruana, who beat David Howell. More surprisingly, that scoregroup also contains 89th seed Manuel Petrosyan, whose draw with Sarin meant he is still unbeaten despite having faced five higher-rated opponents. He's still a long shot to qualify from here, but you can't rule it out at this stage. His next game, however, will be the toughest test yet: a downfloat to 5th seed Vitiugov with black.



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